Pages

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I know I always say this, but seriously, I am SO excited to share my mani with you guys today!! A few years ago I attempted to recreate one of Andy Warhol's pop art images (the one with the guns) on my nails and it was disastrous to say the least. I mean, just awful! I recently received a few plates from MoYou London to review and after looking at this one image of Marilyn Monroe I knew it was time to try another pop art look. This time I was successful!

Now I don't know about you guys, but I am totally in love with this look! It incorporates so many things that I adore: bright colors, polka dots, eye catching imagery and of course, Marilyn. I think this mani was successful because my creative process this time was different than any other time I've created a manicure. I usually sit a bunch of colors and plates in front of me and have at it but this time I thought to sketch it out first.

After I sketched the nails I went and grabbed a bunch of bright polishes. As you can see, I broke down the colors I would be using for each nail. "B" is my base or background color, "H" is hair & "F" is face.

My manicure began with 2 coats each (starting from pinky to thumb) of Zoya Micky, Bettina Green Apple & Bettina Sunrise and 3 coats each of Essie Saturday Disco Fever & Essie Turquoise & Caicos. I honestly liked that the way it was, just fun bright colors! But I had to finish the task at hand so I started my nail art using MoYou London's Pro Collection 10 Plate and Konad Special Stamping Polish in black.

All of my Marilyn's were created using the stamping decal method and MoYou's Rebel Collection 02 plate. I made these Warhol-esque by using funky color combinations that really pop when put together. These are the polishes I used:

Turquoise - Essie Turquoise & Caicos

Purple - Essie Play Date

Yellow - Bettina Sunrise

Orange - Essie Saturday Disco Fever

Green - Bettina Green Apple

Pink - Zoya Micky

I've been wearing this mani since Saturday. Do I love it? Maybe a little too much! However, FedEx just left with a delivery so I will weep as I remove this. Do you guys have any MoYou stamping plates? I love the unique images that are on them and the wide variety of collections that they offer. MoYou plates retail for £4.99 & can be purchased on their website. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers & I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I was checking out my Instagram feed a couple weeks ago and came across a swatch by @Lacquerloon that made me do something I haven't done in a while. I made my first impulse buy in months! One look at Hare Polish Wrapped In Plastic and I'm sure you'll understand why.

Wrapped In Plastic is described as a subtle blue toned grey jelly with white, aqua and iridescent gold glitter throughout. I applied 1 coat of this over a light blue creme. It went on beautifully and was super shiny when it dried.

For nail art I used some Scotch tape and Cult Nails Tempest to create the triangles. Then I cut some stamping decals to fit inside the triangles. The decals were made using MoYou London's Suki Collection 1 plate and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away! + Bettina Vanity. I completed this manicure with a coat of HKGirl and 2 studs.

To be honest, I wish I would have just left this mani alone before the nail art. The polish itself was beautiful enough on her own. I really want to try some more Hare Polishes. Do you guys have any suggestions? Favorites? Hare retails for $12.50 & can be purchased through her shop on Etsy. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

Monday, February 17, 2014

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I know you all have been waiting patiently to see if you won my giveaway and I'm so excited to reveal the winner!! Before I announce who the lucky lovely is, I just want to thank each and every one of you again for being a huge part of my blog, l♡ve you! Without further ado, the winner of my big Fan Appreciation Giveaway is Shea L.!!!! Shea, I'll be contacting you via email so that I can get your prize package out to you. Thank you to everyone who joined in the fun!

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I have a really cool post to share with you all today. Do you guys remember the anti-Valentines Day manicures I did last year and the year before? I think this will be an LML tradition since I have another anti-Valentines Day mani to share with you all. So for my ladies and gents who despise this commercialized holiday, this one is for you!

This manicure was inspired by a pin on Pinterest. I saw this really cool burned pages manicure tutorial on there and knew that I wanted to recreate something similar. I chose to stamp on the letter from BM311 instead of using the newspaper method in the tutorial because every time I've tried it the ink just wouldn't transfer. One day I'll get that technique down, but for now, stamping works great for me!

This manicure began with 2 coats of Zoya Chantal. Chantal can be best described as a delicious full-coverage, French Vanilla cream. I like the color of this polish as a base but the formula is a little streaky. It does even out when dry, however (it's still wet in these pics).

Next I used my Konad Special Stamping Polish in black and BM311 to stamp on the letter. I scraped some of the image off of my stamper so that the word "Love" was only on my ring finger. I wasn't worried about placement because I knew some of the bald spots would serve as burns. I used Zoya Louise and followed the tutorial in the pin above to achieve this look and stamped on a kiss using Zoya Rekha and Cheeky CH29. This mani was complete with a coat of HKGirl.

How cool is this manicure?! I love how the burned pages came out and that I was able to use stamping as a remedy for the newspaper trick. So what do you think guys? Will you be wearing an anti-Valentine's Day mani or going all out with hearts and roses on your nails this Friday? As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Hello Lacquer Luvers! As promised, I have my first Valentine's Day mani to share with you guys today. Before I get into it, I just want to say THANK YOU to each and every one of you! LuvMyLacquer hit 1,000 followers this weekend and I am still over-the-moon with excitement about that! You all have been so supportive since day one and I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you for joining me on my blogging journey and having me as part of this amazing community.

Today's manicure is a little unconventional when it comes to the Valentine's Day theme. It's not your typical pink, red and white manicure but it sure is cutesy and would be great to wear on the day for lovers, don't you think? Let me share with you how I achieved this look.

This manicure began with two coats each of Essie Play Date and Bettina 190. The formula for both of these polishes is really nice. They went on smoothly and had a high gloss finish without a topcoat. I chose these colors to play up the fabulous glitter I used, Loaded Lacquer Oxygen Bar. Oxygen Bar is described as matte neon pink, matte neon blue, metallic purple, holographic lavender and periwinkle hex and squares in multiple sizes. I love everything about this polish. The neon glitters are incredibly eye catching while the periwinkle glitter lends a softer feel and the tiny holographic glitter keeps it playful.

These stamping decals were created with Pueen43, Cult Nails Tempest, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, & China Glaze Gothic Lolita. I applied a coat of Orly Prisma Gloss Silver because..well, one could never have too much holo sparkliness, right? I sealed all of cuteness in with a coat of my favorite glossy topcoat, HKGirl, and voilà!

Do you all love this mani as much as I do? I just love the glitter in Oxygen Bar and it was a great inspiration for this look. Did you know that you have a chance of winning this polish and lots more goodies by entering my Fan Appreciation Giveaway? Are there any looks you'd like to see from me for Valentine's Day? As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Hello Lacquer Luvers! I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend so far. Things are pretty busy around here but I'm enjoying spending time with my family. I got around to doing my nails last night and couldn't wait to get up and take pictures of this! I'm sure most of you are expecting something with hearts.. I'll have those up this week, I promise! It's been a while since I've done a neon mani though and the mood struck me to come up with this:

I received these 2mm round neon studs from The Daily Charme a while ago. While re organizing my stash, I came across them again and knew that I wanted to use them for my next mani. The plate that I used for this manicure was right under these studs and I haven't used that yet either so I grabbed these and an arsenal of neon polishes and got to work.

I began with 2 coats of Bettina Matte and 1 coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism (FPBE). Matte is a basic white polish and was great for getting the neon colors to pop. Using a makeup sponge, I dipped the corners in various colors (Essie Bottle Service + multiple Island Girl neons) and applied the polish to my white canvases. Once that dried, I used FPBE to stamp on this image from Lily Anna 08 and sealed my nails with my oh-so-shiny HKGirl topcoat. I completed this manicure by adding the neon studs before the topcoat was completely dry.

I love how the studs pop against the black polish and the graffiti-ish vibe the image on this plate gives this manicure! You can find these awesome studs in The Daily Charme's Etsy shop for $3.50 & the Lily Anna 08 plate on Messy Mansion's website for $10.00. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Hello Lacquer Luvers! A few weeks ago I just so happened to be on Facebook at the right time because I came across a flash giveaway and was lucky enough to actually win, yaaaay!! The giveaway was held by Above The Curve and Model City and the winner simply had to guess a number between 1-1000. I chose 815 (Gabrielle's birthday) & got to pick a polish and cuticle oil from Model City as my awesome prize.

Admittedly, I haven't heard of Model City before this giveaway but was instantly intrigued by the beautiful creations in her shop upon clicking the link in her Facebook bio. I mean, wow! Gorgeous holos and glitter polishes, what was there not to love? It was hard to pick one but I'm very happy with the pretty that I chose.

More Than Words is described as a berry holographic jelly blend with a splash red micro flakes. The description is dead on! I applied three coats of this beauty for this look. I liked this polish more and more with each coat. The berry color is super pretty and the scattered holo particles blinged it up perfectly, but the red flakes in it are what made me fall in love with this polish. Just look at them in the macro below!

Stunning, isn't it? One of the things I really loved about this manicure was that I didn't use my clean up brush once! The formula and brush are perfection as was the scent of the sugar cookie cuticle oil I received in this prize pack. This blend of Sweet Almond oil, Avocado oil, Vitamins A, C, D, & E, and fragrance oils, absorbed into my cuticles very fast and didn't leave a greasy feel. It really did smell like sugar cookies, too!

If you are a fan of holo, jelly, and glasss fleck polishes like I am you will absolutely adore More Than Words! I love this color and really want to try more of the Model City polishes now. Model City nail polish retails for $8.50/15mL bottle. The cuticle oil is a steal at $4.50, too! Check out more Model City goodies by clicking here. As always, I hope you all enjoyed this post my dear Lacquer Luvers and I look forward to sharing my next post with you, xo!